In a typical cellular network a base station or router keeps track of the communication in the cell and all nodes within the cell. The router or base station may typically relay communication between nodes.
A mesh network, on the other hand, is typically an ad hoc network. In such networks there is no base station or router keeping track of the nodes, nor controlling the communication between nodes. Instead the nodes themselves, or stations as they typically are referred to when dealing with mesh networks, keep track of each other by establishing peer connections and having peer tables. A peer is a neighboring station in the mesh network.
Mesh networks are typically dynamic with a network topology which may rapidly change in conjunction with stations entering and leaving the mesh network.
When a new station enters a mesh network, a handshake procedure is initiated with at least one of the stations currently in the network. When the handshake procedure is complete, both stations will have each other in its respective peer table. This is typically how stations within a network receive knowledge about other stations in the network.
Mesh networks have the capability to become very large which introduces difficulties in keeping track of all the stations within in the large network.
When the mesh network software stack is run on devices with a memory constraint, the number of slots in the peer table is typically limited. The limit is typically set to 8 slots.
This leads to a problem when the stations of a network have saturated their peer tables and new stations enter. The new stations may then form isolated mesh network clusters which typically lowers the mesh connectivity factor, since the total percentage of reachable mesh stations for any given station is lowered.
Therefore, there is a need for mesh network stations and methods that reduce the amount of clusters, reduce the risk of clusters forming and enhance the overall mesh connectivity.